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Education & Experience
Glen VanHerck is a visionary senior leader leveraging more than 36 years of service culminating as commander of both North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command. He brings a wealth of experience in strategy and policy development, and joint planning and operations. Glen is the Principal at Glen VanHerck Advisors, LLC, and he serves as a board director and strategic advisor to multiple companies spanning various industry sectors. He serves as a Senior Fellow at the National Defense University and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. He’s a member of the MITRE Air and Space Council and life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Glen served for nearly 37 years on active duty in the United States Air Force, in multiple assignments spanning fighter, bomber, and training operations including serving as a United States Air Force Weapons School Instructor in the F-15C and the B-2A. He commanded two squadrons, an operations group, and two operational wings. He also commanded the United States Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis AFB, Nevada.
Glen spent his last seven years on active duty serving in joint assignments. Prior to commanding NORAD and NORTHCOM, he served as Director of the Joint Staff. In this role he advised the Chairman, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in their roles as advisors to the Secretary of Defense and President, served as the Joint Staff Inspector General, and led daily operations for the Joint Staff. He also served as the Vice Director of the Joint Staff and the Vice Director of Strategy, Plans, and Policy (J5). Glen played critical roles in the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the National Military Strategy, the Missile Defense Review, Nuclear Posture Review, stand up of United States Space Command, and responses to COVID, civil unrest, and global instability. At NORAD and NORTHCOM he led the commands and the Deptment of Defense in the implementation of the Global Information Dominance Experiments(GIDE). Other joint assignments include serving as the Director, Plans and Integration, JFCC-GS, United States Strategic Command. He is a command pilot with more than 4,000 flying hours in the F-15C, F-35A, B-2A, andB-1B and a FAA licensed Airline Transport Pilot.
Glen is a graduate of the University of Missouri. He received graduate degrees from the University of Central Missouri and the Naval War College. He is passionate about growing leader’s, the use of emerging technologies such as AI/ML to create time and decision space, homeland defense, organizational efficiencies, and globally integrated all domain operations and planning.